REVOLUTION (Rob Stewart). 86 minutes. Some subtitles. Opens Friday (April 12). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: NN
Full disclosure: Rob Stewart and I used to work together. Before he became a documentarian-activist, he was my cameraman on a number of Toronto Film Festival interviews for Global Television in the early 2000s.
Since then, Rob's upped his game, turning his lifelong interest in underwater photography into the 2007 documentary Sharkwater - and following that with Revolution, which documents his subsequent efforts to get people to wake up and stop poisoning the earth. It's a compelling thesis: what good will it do to save sharks if we're destroying the whole planet?
But as was the case with Sharkwater, a worthy message is muddled by a lack of editorial rigour. Revolution is a disorganized, jumbled piece of work. Rob zips around the globe dropping in on various protest movements and looking concerned, then flips back to lovely HD seascapes as he recharges his activist batteries by shooting some more underwater footage.
I understand his reasoning - the marine world is part of what he's trying to save - but the footage doesn't belong in this picture. It cripples the momentum and keeps Revolution from digging into the movements Rob visits. The cumulative effect is like watching someone flip through Polaroids of his adventure tourism.